


Without False Hope

by ceceliatarleton



Series: Spira to Insomnia: See You In The Next Life [1]
Category: Final Fantasy X, Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Alternate Universe - Reincarnation, Canon Compliant, Canon-Typical Violence, Crossover, F/M, Gen, M/M, See you in the next life, tidus/yuna - Freeform, wakka/lulu - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-29
Updated: 2020-05-29
Packaged: 2021-03-02 21:09:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,319
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24443371
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ceceliatarleton/pseuds/ceceliatarleton
Summary: Axel is a summoner with many failings who takes Yevon too lightly. Roxas is a Crusader who is shorter and slighter than most recruits turned Guardian that doesn't look like he could guard cream from a cat, much less be trusted to protect Axel on his journey. This is their story, from first meetings during Braska's Calm through walking the road to Zanarkand, sharing a campsite with Braska's daughter. Love, faith, and the fight against despair set in the world of Spira.
Relationships: Axel & Saïx (Kingdom Hearts), Axel & Xion (Kingdom Hearts), Axel/Roxas (Kingdom Hearts), Isa & Lea & Roxas & Xion (Kingdom Hearts), Isa & Lea (Kingdom Hearts), Roxas & Xion (Kingdom Hearts)
Series: Spira to Insomnia: See You In The Next Life [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1765327
Comments: 10
Kudos: 12





	Without False Hope

**Author's Note:**

> It was supposed to be a single chapter in a fic about Axel and Roxas living lives in every Final Fantasy world. Then it was going to be a one shot, maybe a couple chapter fic of highlights of Axel and Roxas on a summoner's Pilgrimage with some cameos from Yuna and Tidus. Now, I didn't even check off but two bullet points out of thirteen on "little paragraph scenes" I wanted to include in a pre-Pilgrimage prologue. I...don't know what I expected really. I hope I can invest even people who have never played FFX in this. There's a fair amount of exposition and world building in this first chapter to kind of ease non-FFX fans in, though I tried to make it naturally integrated and not too dense and to not over-explain/explain things that could just be gleaned from context. There will be other explanations as we go and less so over time as I want to show more than tell. Please, please tell me if things need to be clearer and where. For those that have played FFX, yes, I did do a little headcanoning and will probably do more. Tell me if I made any outright errors and feel free to debate me on things because lord knows my memory is fallible. Timeline/ages for those keeping track: Axel was 15-16 when Braska defeated Sin. Roxas was 13ish. This chapter, Roxas is 15 and Axel is 17. Main story/Pilgrimage time: Roxas 23 and Axel 26. Many thanks to Shaky Mayhemm for reading this through for me and telling me that it's easy for a non-FF player to pick up and for just being amazing in general. AND FOR ART. I GOT ART

"Al Bhed eyes."

"Nobody naturally has eyes that green."

"He's not a real Spiran. He's a fucking machina monkey. I'd stake all my gil on it."

For the past two months the whispers hadn't stopped about the newest clerk at the weapons shop by the docks, a lanky teenager who had appeared behind the counter one day as if materialized out of nowhere. Some boy with hair the color of a flame flan worn long, sometimes loose and spiky and sometimes braided with beads ("Just like an Al Bhed would" according to Hayner, though to Roxas the design looked more like what a few travelers from Kilika had been wearing during the last blitzball tournament). He wasn't a very attentive clerk; it took someone standing directly in his eye line to get him to greet them, and most times even then they had to speak first. Not that he had very many customers to worry about these days. It was the Calm and the populace liked to pretend that all fiends had died with Sin. So the redheaded stranger was free to lean his elbows on the counter, rest his face on his hand, and stare off into the distance with eyes that were, yes, too vivid a green to settle well, focused on something only he could see.

Roxas didn't think the cashier could be Al Bhed. There was enough variety in Al Bhed features --proving that some Spiran weren't so complete in their hate--that it was believed the only true way to tell was to look for green eyes with spirals in the pupils, the one trait that couldn't be bred out, but there were generalities and the clerk didn't fit the profile. His skin was too pale for one, near translucent like he'd never seen the sun, when the persistent rumor about the Al Bhed was that they slept in burrows dug in the Bikanel Desert. Roxas doubted the burrows. What made the Al Bhed hated heretics was their traditional use of the same forbidden machinery that had first called Sin into creation. If they had robots to do their bidding and great flying ships, as was the claim, it stood to reason that even if they lived underground that they'd do better than simple burrows. The new clerk at the weapons shop had soft hands and no callouses on his long fingers (Roxas might have spent a hour in the shop the other day, looking at swords his mother now prayed he'd never wield when before his tenth birthday she claimed that Yevon had sent her a dream he'd grow to be a summoner's guardian. He may have noticed some things. Unfortunately, he couldn't confirm the clerk's pupils He couldn't even confirm the clerk's name. He'd ran out without getting the nerve to ask). The redhead fit the profile of academic or temple acolyte much more closely than a desert dweller who had spent his life on salvage missions or messing around fixing machina. He spoke Spiran Common without an accent, and when Roxas had, on the same shopping trip he'd spent half of watching the wistful smile on the clerks face and his fingers drumming beats on the counter, asked the newcomer if he was a Psyches fan and had gotten a derisive chuckle and the claim the clerk had never watched a full blitzball game in his life, but knew enough to root for the Luca Goers.

Perhaps that last was evidence he _was_ an Al Bhed, if Roxas thought about it, or maybe it was just a crack about knowing how much Luca natives liked their home team and not wanting to make waves. He wasn't sure. He didn't see how it mattered though, and he said basically as much.

"High Summoner Braska married an Al Bhed and the fayth favored him enough he was able to defeat Sin. Couldn't that be a sign from Yevon that we are supposed to have peace with the Al Bhed?" It was a gentle enough question, and Roxas never shied away from saying exactly what he believed, so he didn't regret the words when they left his mouth, but he did steel himself for derision at the kindest. Luca was the most tolerant city in Spira, allowing the Al Bhed Psyches to play in the blitzball league, but, beyond that and as individual citizens, the hate still ran rampant.

Roxas wasn't ignorant. He knew the teachings of Yevon and Spira's history. A thousand years ago there were great, shining cities run by machina that allowed humans to become lazy and to use their idle days to fall further and further into vices. They warred against each other out of boredom and greed, and it would have been justice for them to consume and destroy each other (Or so they story said. Roxas couldn't imagine going to war for no reason, and what cause was there for greed when the story went that people in the shining city of Zanarkand that never slept had every imaginable material possession or pleasure they could want? ) but the sin of man created the great leviathan, Sin, instead. Sin destroyed the great cites, their machina, and much of the people, and from that day, there was no true, lasting peace. There was the Calm brought when a summoner of sufficient purity of faith, strength of spirit, and selflessness would defeat Sin temporarily by calling on the aeons born from the patron fayth of Spira's temples, but the Calm would always end and Sin reincarnate until the day humanity had fully repented and proved worthy of a second chance. Machinery was forbidden under Yevon, but to Roxas it seemed like the judgement of Yevon and of Sin was over human weakness, not the tools they used.

The counterargument was that Sin destroyed any city that got too large or advanced, with the exception of Bevelle, which was a holy city as the seat of the Church of Yevon, and Luca, which boasted constant protection by a significant portion of Spira's Crusaders, but large cities also meant a high concentration of people, just as likely to influence each other to the worst as strengthen each other in the path to atonement for their ancestors. Even if using machina would call down Sin or the Sinspawn from the skies then hate and forbid the machina by all means, but don’t hate someone for the race they were born as. If the cashier did have spirals for pupils but was living a simple life in Luca and selling swords not the loud, explosive weapons of the Al Bhed, if he'd come to Luca to not live among machina and machina users, then shouldn't he be welcomed?

Roxas almost would have preferred to be called out for suggesting he may know the will of Yevon better than the church to the dismissive reply he got instead. “Lord Braska never had an Al Bhed wife. That’s a lie made up to tarnish the High Summoner.”

Roxas could have scoffed that there was no tarnishing a High Summoner, especially one whose Calm was still ongoing. Summoners, sure. They were still fallible creatures whose face you could bow to and then wait to talk behind their back. It was the natural consequence of anyone no matter their birth or even if they professed belief in Yevon and his teaching being allowed to demand the right to enter the Cloister of Trials at a temple and earn an audience with the temple's patron fayth to beg the chance to be granted the ability to call their aeon in battle. Even summoners who had been approved by the fayth of multiple temples, who could smite enemies with Bahamut’s dragon or call down Hellfire with Ifrit, weren’t always approved by the people of Spira, who decided which summoners to pin hope to and which to wait to see fail. So sad when they died along the road to the Zanarkand ruins, but then some people should know thinking that they might be the end to Spira's sorrow was pure hubris and Yevon may just have been teaching them humility. For a High Summoner to die in the act of summoning the final aeon to defeat Sin as all High Summoners had, that was to perform a sacrifice on behalf of all of Spira (and only a successful final aeon meant the sacrifice was worthy), but to die similarly in _pursuit_ of the same meant something different.

Those whose deaths didn't have witnesses didn't even always get the base courtesy of short lasting, insincere sadness. Roxas's father had been a summoner. The neighborhood had thrown him a party before he left on his Pilgrimage, marched behind him in a parade until he got to the docks, and stood waving as his ship left. It was one of Roxas's early memories. Roxas had then grew up hearing whispers that his father was a coward who quit his Pilgrimage or that he'd been rejected by the fayth and thrown out of the cloister, with either version of the story leading to the assertion he had started a second family because he was too ashamed to come home.

 _High Summoners_ though, those that actually managed to harness the power of the final aeon after gaining the favor of all Spira's fayth and defeat Sin to bring a Calm? They were perfect in death. They were celebrated for all generations to come with a statue in every temple prayed to almost as fervently as if it was a fayth and their name and life taught to every child.

A version of their life at least.

"He did," Roxas insisted. "He talked about his wife and his daughter to everyone at the hotel. Remember? Xion heard her mother talking to their neighbor whose niece is a maid at the inn?" The rumor had come from other sources too. Lord Braska had been one of the more talked about summoners Roxas could remember. Luca saw regular tourists and strangers even when there wasn't a blitzball tournament on. It was one of the few places in Spira where not everyone knew the life story of every neighbor from cradle to present, and a newcomer wasn't an event unless there was something odd about them--like a boy with Al Bhed eyes that didn't seem to notice or care what anyone thought and who stuck around instead of passing through-- or they were a summoner. Summoner robes always led to a stranger becoming everyone's obsession until they knew how to judge them.

It had only been a little over two years ago when Lord Braska and his guardians had passed through Luca, not long enough for the memory to be erased, especially not with Braska becoming a historic figure. Few had wanted to interact with them then. Braska, fallen missionary who had been excommunicated from the church of Yevon and might have been barred from entering the temples even to worship if he hadn't turned around and become a summoner; Sir Auron who was now the only guardian to face Sin with his High Summoner and live, but back then was just as controversial as Braska for those that knew Bevelle's gossip, though Roxas hadn't been privy to what sin separated him from traditional service to Yevon; and then the second guardian, Jecht, loud, brutish, and vocal about being a recovering alcoholic as well as some delusion about being a time traveler. They'd been whispered and laughed about until the day Sin was seen bursting into a cloud of pyreflies so thick it blocked out the sun temporarily in the Calm Lands and messengers rode through all of Spira on chocobo back and spread the word of its death.

Now, everyone claimed to have known Lord Braska, found him inhumanly kind, and held him dear, including the church of Yevon again. Roxas hadn't gotten to meet him, but those that had and were open minded had admitted the kindness even before he became High Summoner so Roxas liked to imagine it was true.

"The fayth wouldn't entrust their aeons to someone who had been tainted by an Al Bhed." There was no sense talking to the willfully deaf and blind. "You're changing the subject. The weapon shop owner's new assistant is obviously an Al Bhed and we should do something about it."

Roxas felt a rock drop into his stomach at the ominous words, but instead of asking the question he didn't want answered about what his friends were thinking of doing, he retorted with the same stubbornness others had exhibited a moment ago, though he felt his was less blind. "I'm telling you that he's not Al Bhed."

"Are you volunteering to check out his eyes?"

Someone else chimed in before Roxas could refute. "Why not? He's already been checking out the rest of him."

There was laughter and Roxas felt his neck grow warm. "That's...no, he's..." The shop boy was older--only identifiable as a teenager because the weapons shop owner had affectionately complained about his new help and used the term--mysterious, untouchable, and definitely wouldn't look twice at a runty fifteen year old with hair like a chocobo's tailfeathers. "Maybe I am offering. Sounds like you were about to dare me." He buried his embarrassment under layers of bravado.

Terms of the dare were decided and a witness accompanied him to the weapons shop to ensure that he got close enough to read the cashier's pupils. Roxas was still trying to think of how to get that near when he approached the counter after walking back and forth in front of it twice, turning at the last second and pretending to look at displays nearby, casting what he hoped weren't too obvious glances at the shop boy. "Hello, I'm Roxas." Maybe he'd think of something as he went. The cashier stood up instead of remaining hunched leaning over the counter when Roxas approached and the distance was just enough that his pupils were indistinct dark splotches in green irises.

"Second floor of the tan building next to the Moon Crest Cafe," the cashier replied with a smirk.

"Huh?" Roxas was left gaping.

"That's where my mom and I live. We share an apartment with another family so the door probably will be answered by someone you don't know and they might be hostile." It was all said casually. The shop boy locked his fingers and stretched his arms over his head, driving in just how tall he was. Roxas was transfixed watching his abs flex. The cashier had foregone wearing a shirt entirely today in favor of an embroidered long sleeved jacket in a shade of orange so jarringly bright it could be tasted and felt as well as seen worn open to expose a chest even more ghostly pale than his arms. "They're protective, all of them. It might be better if I meet you outside, or, if you're thinking of tonight, you can meet me here before sunset."

Roxas didn't have anything more intelligent than "huh" to respond with so he stayed silent and let his confused face do the talking.

"Oh man. I thought they kept the zombie fiends on the road to Zanarkand," the shop boy laughed and it lit Roxas up like a thunder spell. "I'm trying to help you ask me out, Roxas, since it seemed like you might be having trouble. The answer's yes. I like ice cream. We can start there. I'm Axel."

"I wasn't..." Roxas could have kicked himself for the denial but his brain was having trouble processing his luck and so his mouth ran stupidly.

Axel deflated obviously, to the extent of it coming across as a put upon act. "Yevon save me. Don't tell me you're one of _those._ "

Roxas didn't know who Axel was talking about but he would swear to the Farplane that he was not one and then walk through fire to prove it. He couldn't deny he felt a bit lighter hearing Axel use Yevon's name, even flippantly though, and it would make him wonder later if for all his broad mind that maybe he was closer to one of _those_ than he'd want to admit, just a bit. "One of what?"

"You're not here to look at the broadswords or katanas."

There was a brief stare off as Roxas found his spine hiding under all the butterflies the redhead had caused to infest him and challenged, "How do you know?" His arms weren't that twiggy. He could lift a sword. He'd already been training with some of the more indulgent Crusaders before Lord Braska had brought the Calm. Axel waited him out until he admitted sheepishly. "I'm supposed to get a good look at your eyes and see if you're Al Bhed."

"Say it isn't so!" Axel clutched his chest and groaned but there was no actual surprise to be seen or heard. "All those afternoons fantasizing about the cute blond who keeps coming in to stare at the same shelf of targes, wondering if he's shy, what his voice sounds like, what makes him laugh, if he's ever going to get up the nerve to talk to me. And now? Turns out he's waiting to report to the lynch mob. Daydream ruined." The whine of the tone and the exaggerated pout adopted after the words were done painted the picture of continued overdone acting. It was baffling but it seemed that Axel was not nearly as offended as he had the right to be.

"The blond would have disappointed anyway," Roxas confessed what he thought to be the truth.

Axel suddenly planted his palms on the counter and leaned over the divide, into Roxas's personal space close enough that their breath mingled on exhale and Roxas could almost feel his retort as well as hear it. "You could have let me be the judge."

Roxas felt the thunder spell jolt again as his mouth ran dry. His head tilted slightly to the side without his permission. It was the strangest thing, he could have sworn he heard deep chiming bells like a clocktower. He pressed up on his toes, following some deranged sense memory, but he didn't reach Axel which must have meant he'd withdrawn. Roxas opened his eyes, distantly aware that the fact that he had to do so meant he must have closed them for a moment without meaning to, though still avoiding the complete realization that Axel had leaned in to play along and give him a good view of his eyes up close and in return he'd tried to kiss him like he had no self-control until he saw Axel's sides tremor with silent laughter and heard a chide of, "Ice cream first, Roxas."

Thunder faded and Roxas felt like he'd been struck by fira, shamed heat rising on his face. He'd really made a fool of himself several times over in just a few minutes, and for nothing since he'd both ruined any shot with Axel and missed his chance to make good on the dare all in one. Still a moment behind, Roxas said, "I'll be going now," and was half to the door before Axel halted him with a reminder that he got off at sunset. For a moment he just gaped and then gave up on winning back any cool points by nodding vigorously while beaming like an idiot.

Roxas told everyone that Axel didn't have spiral pupils. Later, he got another chance to check while they walked along the docks eating their ice cream. Roxas spent more time talking than eating and found himself slurping a quickly melting mess that ended up all over both his hands and face. Axel accused him of doing it on purpose to create a cliche moment, before completing the scenario, leaning in and swiping away the sticky smears around his mouth with a gentle brush of his thumb--and it felt achingly familiar for a moment, Axel so close with the setting sun creating a halo that made his hair's resemblance to burning flame complete. Bells chimed again. Axel lingered close and they'd stayed staring into each other's eyes long enough Roxas was able to see Axel's pupils were pure black circles. He was relieved not to be a liar. He didn't want to examine how deep that relief felt.

"Where did you come from?" Roxas asked him when they had made enough other conversation for it not to sound like the only thing he could think about.

"Well, Roxas, when two people love each other very much..."

"Shut up." Roxas bumped Axel's side with his shoulder, hard enough for it to jostle him but not hard enough to actually set him off kilter since the taller teenager insisted on walking the very edge of the docks without railing like he was practicing a balancing act. "Where did you move to Luca from?"

"Who says I haven't lived in the city my whole life?"

"You've never seen a blitzball game."

"I'm sorry. Your line was 'I would have noticed you.'"

"I don't know everyone in Luca," Roxas replied reasonably.

Axel groaned. "You kill me. It doesn't have to be true. It's flirting."

"I would have noticed you though." It was deeper than playing along.

"There you go. That little catch in your voice with the soft sincerity? I think my knees are going weak."

"Shut up,"Roxas repeated himself and a laugh bubbled up in his throat.

"Don't be mean. I didn't run you off for wanting to check my eyes."

"Yeah, why didn't you? I'm grateful, but it doesn't make sense."

Axel sighed heavily and the words "Used to it" could be made out in the puff of air. "Doesn't bother me any more."

"You shouldn't have to be used to it."

"Yeah, and?" Axel stopped walking and leveled a suddenly sour look at Roxas.

"I don't know. That was it. I didn't get beyond you shouldn't have to put up with that. It's dumb, that something as simple as eye color would make people suspicious of you."

"It's a small thing to get used to in the grand scheme of things." Axel's stare went slightly unfocused as it tended to do, but the result wasn't his typical far-off daydreamer look. "The south side of Kilika had to be rebuilt twice while I lived there, that I remember. The docks, probably more. They weren't as sturdy as the piers here. There was no point." Green eyes started to mist over and Axel took an audibly rattling breath and Roxas had never felt so helpless in his life. " Have you ever been to a mass funeral? Do they have them in Luca with a Crusader on every street and a platoon of them within a whistle blow if a Sinspawn is seen near the stadium?" Roxas felt like a fish caught on a hook, but Axel didn't leave much of a pause for him to squirm in. "You don't need to answer that, I'm sorry, that came out more aggressive than I wanted it to. The point is, I've been through worse than random eye exams."

It wasn't comparable at all. To suffer and witness suffering because of Sin and to be harassed by other people were very different classes of thing, but Roxas accepted the faulty comparison with a nod. "I'm sorry," the words were as insufficient as they always had been. Axel started walking again, and though Roxas was sure the pace seemed normal to the redhead, Roxas had to take long strides to keep up.

"You don't need to be." Axel appeared to force himself to remember he wasn't running away and to slow down.

"So, you moved here from Kilika?"

"When I was young. I stayed here for a few months and then I was shipped up Mi'hen Highroad to Djose Temple to be their problem for awhile."

Roxas was proud of himself for how accurate he'd been so far on his conclusions about Axel. "You were a temple acolyte?" He was having a harder time picturing Axel in a temple already after a short conversation with him.

"Something like that." Axel huffed a short, humorless chuckle and Roxas would look back years later and realize he should have known then what Axel had been doing at the temple. "It didn't take very well. That's why I came back."

"What was it like? Besides the death?" Roxas reached at a happier topic.

"Djose Temple or Kilika?"

"Either," Roxas replied easily. "I've never left Luca." Though he should have waited for Axel's reply to whichever of the two topics he chose, he couldn't help speaking up as implications of Axel's reply hit him. "There were deaths at Djose Temple?" So much for lighter conversational fare. It wasn't that Roxas had never seen death or knew someone that died, even excluding his father. Death was a part of Spiran life, even for spoiled city boys like he was sure he was coming across as. The temples of Yevron were sanctuaries though, weren't they?

"Not often at the temple itself, though we'd get travelers that barely made it there from Mi'hen or Mushroom Rock and died on our doorstep." Axel changed courses, with only a jerk of his head to warn that he was going to start walking in another direction. They were by the newer, larger, more developed docks now and there were benches. Axel led them to one as he talked. "Crusaders stationed nearby that purposefully brought their most wounded if they were in a position to, because they couldn't stand the idea of a comrade dying without there being someone to perform a Sending. The more professional Crusaders would never take that kind of a risk of them turning fiend on the way and putting others in danger, but the younger ones would do it. Then there were the summoners that couldn't handle Ixion's blessing or those that were rejected."

"Djose's fayth kills unworthy summoners?" Roxas asked the question in the same way he would have if Axel had asserted the sun was blue and the sky yellow over the temple, controlled enough not to sound scornful but unable to completely conceal disbelief and confusion. Not much was known about what summoners and their guardians faced in a temple's Cloister of Trials, as they were forbidden to speak of them once they emerged, and still less was known about the innermost sanctums of the fayth's chambers beyond the cloister where the summoners went alone to commune with the patron spirit of a temple and ask for their aid, but the tales of failure, the ones that reached Luca at least, focused on the burden of shame that must be carried when a summoner was marked unworthy not on any consequence carried out by the fayth.

"Not Djose's fayth," Axel answered with a stress on the location that made the hairs on Roxas's arms stand up and made him want to close his ears to Axel's follow up clarification. "Ifrit has been known to boil the blood of the occasional uppity prospect. Djose's fayth will spit you back into the world unharmed."

"But not unscathed," Roxas could fill in the unspoken. Once again, he hadn't meant to interrupt. It was just hard for his mind to control his mouth when he was processing other revelations. Axel nodded almost imperceptibly and continued to speak, and Roxas bit the side of his cheek to keep himself from commenting on the familiarity Axel spoke of the fayth and their rejection with and ask how many times he had witnessed it, and if the sadness in his tone meant it had happened to someone he knew or if it was just empathy.

"There was a boy that tried to throw himself off a cliff on Mushroom Rock Road after Ixion turned him away." Axel's voice kept halting. Roxas wondered if he'd witnessed it personally. "I'm sure he wasn't the only one. The loss of hope, of what you thought your purpose was, of the chance of making sure the people you love would not have to spend their lives in fear of Sin....It has to hit hard." Axel blinked out a single tear and winced as he wiped it away as if he thought it weak. Roxas wanted to assure him that he felt no such thing, but he settled for taking the hand that had scraped the evidence of Axel's pain away in his and squeezing it reassuringly, and retracing the still damp patch beneath Axel's eye softly with the thumb of his free hand.

"But successful summoners still don't always make it to the next stop on their journey." Axel seemed to be forcing out every point he wanted to speak on at this point and Roxas let him. "The fayth aren't supposed to make mistakes on who they pick for their champions, and for the most part that's true, but the human body isn't meant to carry that much power. It's one of the things that sets summoners apart, that they are even for a moment able to be a conduit for the fayth and call forth their physical manifestations. Have you ever seen an aeon?"

Roxas merely nodded, the opposite of his repeated mistake of chiming in unnecessarily. Axel continued to wait silently and Roxas caught on and clarified. "My father summoned Valefor for me when he passed back through Luca after visiting Besaid Temple." Roxas lost himself for a moment in the memory his father sending the wind aeon far out over the water, and how he wasn't able to understand why until, at a gesture of his father's hand the mighty beast created waves large enough they would have destroyed the docked ships with the flapping of its horizon-spanning wings, then it had been called near and bowed before them, leaving deep gouges in the dock with its razor claws. His father had laughed when Roxas hid behind him and said Valefor was the most gentle of the aeons. He'd shown Roxas there was nothing to fear by rubbing both hands back and forth over the red feathers on the aeon's bowed head. Roxas couldn't bring himself to touch but he'd remember until his last days when he caught Valefor looking at him with a single, gentle, soulful, intelligent eye that knew the secrets of the universe, past and future.

"Your father?' Axel was clearly thrown and Roxas could see him filing away questions for later that Roxas knew he wouldn't want to answer, at least not usually, though after all Axel had already shared, Roxas wouldn't hesitate. The redhead shook his head as if to clear it. "But have you ever seen an aeon in battle? What even a portion of the fayth's power, what they give away and split between all active summoners they bless, can do?"

Roxas shook his head and offered, "I saw Valefor flap his wings," as if it was comparable.

"It gets easier on the summoner the more they call on the aeons, but even the most seasoned summoners usually spend a day sleeping before they are fit to travel after first being granted the fayth's favor. Some of them get sick. We had extra rooms for them at the temple or they'd be put up at the inn. They'd come out of the cloister of trials unconscious, carried by their guardians, and you'd know they were successful. When they felt they had recovered, they'd summon their aeon for the first time. Mistakes were rare, but there were some that didn't make it."

"I didn't know." The endless sacrifice of summoners had always deeply bothered Roxas, but he hadn't felt this sick in years. How could his mother have ever let his father go on his journey? How could people all across Spira send wives, husbands, sisters, brothers, sons, and daughters yearly to go through trial and torture with death as the only ending? It was for Spira, of course, it was for the world, and one day the Eternal Calm would come, but though Yevron preached the atonement of Spira as a whole, the world acted as if they could pass the responsibility to sending a perfect summoner sacrifice.

"The potential summoners know," Axel replied gently enough that Roxas was left to conclude that the older boy was comforting him, which seemed backward. "Maybe not your rare random farmer or blitzer who woke up one morning deciding to change the world, but most know all the risks involved. They've weighed it. The Guardians have a more difficult time accepting that there's something they can't help their summoner with. They can slay fiends on the road. Even Sinspawn they can rush and tell the summoner to get to safety. They can take on the brunt of the cloister's trials, but they can't help with the fayth or the summonings. It's just practice for the end." Axel's emotions had even out again. He spoke of the end of a summoner's pilgrimage like it was the changing of tides or seasons. 

Roxas could feel blasphemous, ungrateful statements roiling in his stomach, thoughts he'd long had about what a cruel waste of life the endless parade of summoners seemed like sometimes exasperated by the new knowledge that even the fayth that were supposed to be empowering summoners and showing Yevon's favor were killing them. "I'm going to join the Crusaders," was what came out of his mouth instead. "If the Calm doesn't last. I'm going to become a Crusader."

Maybe only a summoner could defeat Sin, but there had only been five High Summoners in history, each introducing a shorter Calm than the last, and exponentially more summoners that set off each year never to return. The Crusader order may only have the power of trained bodies and weapons, few could do even basic magic, but Roxas saw the real hope of Spira in them not a hopeless battle. Band enough ordinary men and women together and they could take out Sinspawn, and that Sin itself left Luca on the map had to show that a concentration of Crusaders did something. He'd rather fight clean fights protecting his city and people and showing them there was a way to keep from falling to fear even when the Calm ended than participate in some summoner's death march. 

Axel didn't reply. Roxas knew he'd heard because his jaw worked as if he had to literally chew over Roxas's confession. The redhead's face became a passive mask. "What does your mother think of that?"

"What do you think of that?" Roxas countered, letting his frustration that he couldn't tell show--or, not as much that he couldn't tell but didn't know why Axel would disapprove so much he needed to try so hard to show no reaction. 

"Does it matter what I think? We're practically strangers." 

The bluntness hurt Roxas more than it should have, considering Axel did have a point. He wanted to say that, yes, Axel's opinion meant something to him. It meant a lot. He'd add something about how though he just learned his name earlier that day, he already felt like he'd known Axel a lifetime and it might be silly but he thought Axel felt the same. "I thought we were bonding. Do you often open up like this to people you just met?"

"Sure. Mass memorials and suicidal failed summoners are great first date ice breakers." Axel's smile didn't reach his eyes, but Roxas returned it and whatever tension had settled when Roxas said he wanted to be a Crusader completely dispelled.

"My mother respects the Crusaders, but it's not what she would choose for me," Roxas answered Axel's previous question. He selected his words carefully and it still sounded like he was admitting she didn't approve, though it might not be a fight that they would have to have now.

"Because she doesn't want you putting yourself at risk or because she had other plans for you?"

"A bit of both."

"Already picked out a girl for you to marry?" Axel teased with what Roxas supposed was an attempt to waggle his brows though it looked more like a small facial seizure.

Another attempt to lighten the mood at least partially failed. "My best friend Xion" Roxas supplied listlessly. He loved Xion but he couldn't fathom ever loving her that way.

"Oh," Axel looked at the water for a moment, "Even if the Calm lasts?"

"If the Calm lasts, it's perfect for raising a family," Roxas sighed the words. "It doesn't matter. There are a few years at least before it's a real pressure. I'm only fifteen."

"Seventeen," Axel volunteered. Roxas was relieved and a bit surprised. Axel seemed to have lived so much more than he had. "I'm not going to be expected to raise a family."

"Even now that you're not at the temple?" 

"Yep," Axel popped the p like there was more he wanted to say, then paused long enough Roxas figured there was nothing more forthcoming, before chuckling and adding. "Though there may still be people assuming that if I could I'd marry my best friend."

"Is she back near Djose or Kilika?"

" _He_ lives here in Luca. It's his family I live with."

"Oh" Roxas's eyebrows tried to acquaint themselves with his hairline.

"You look awfully shocked for someone that tried to kiss me a minute after learning my name." Axel chewed the inside of his cheek to keep his smile in check, amused.

"It's not that," Roxas insisted though he couldn't articulate exactly what it was. He went with an approximation. "I might be jealous."

"He's not competition." Axel had that look again, like there was more to say he held back.

"Not that kind of jealous, though it's good to know." Roxas didn't volunteer more but Axel seemed to quickly connect what else there was to be jealous of and his eyes turned sympathetic. It made Roxas feel guilty since whatever the redhead must now think about his mother, it was probably worse than reality, acceptance as long as it didn't stop him from raising a family one day like a good Spiran, but he wasn't sure explaining would make it any better.

"It's dark now," Axel said like he just noticed, though, admittedly Roxas hadn't noticed until he said it. "Let me walk you home?"

"No," Roxas stood up from the bench and held out a hand for the still seated Axel to take. "I'm going to walk you home."

"What a gentleman!" Axel exclaimed, lapsing into the melodramatic in acting impressed by his gallantry. He didn't argue, for the moment, just stood and entwined his fingers with Roxas's. "You just want a chance to size up Isa."

"If that's your live in best friend, then you're absolutely right."

They walked in companionable silence for a few moments before Axel broke it. "If the Calm lasts, what would you want to do with your life?" 

"Still a Crusader," Roxas admitted. Without Sin there wasn't the need for the same kind of force on hand, but Crusaders wouldn't be obsolete overnight. There would be no giant monsters like the Sinspawn but there would always be fiends, just less when there were less unclean deaths or situations where there was nobody to guide souls to the Farplane before they were warped. Even in the Eternal Calm. Crusaders would be needed for awhile to guard towns or to send Chocobo Knights to clear major travel paths.

"Protect the precious blitzball stadium from stray dingos?"

"What do you have against blitzball? I'm going to buy us tickets to every game next tournament."

"Oh ho ho, that's a big assumption."

"That we'd keep hanging out?" Roxas didn't know why he'd neutered his phrasing from 'that I'd get a second date?' being the question.

"That I'd agree to sit through blitzball." Axel wasn't much better, implying but not voicing that he'd want to see Roxas again.

"If you saw a game, you'd know why people are obsessed."

"One game. You buy the tickets and I promise I'll go with you."

Roxas gave a happy hum. "I'll pick a good one."

"You'd better."

Another silence settled until Roxas realized he could turn Axel's last conversation attempt back on him. "What would you do with your future since temple life didn't take?"

"I don't know," Axel's brow furrowed. "I'm trying to figure that out."

"That's a valid answer."

"Thank you. I was waiting for your approval." Axel pulled Roxas toward a side street. "This is a cut through."

"Trying to get away from me faster?" Roxas joked and tried not to feel disappointed thinking he'd have to say goodbye to Axel in a few minutes.

"I didn't say it was a short cut. It's just a cut through. It could cut through to a street that winds more and gives us more time."

Roxas was struck by thunder once more and his tongue refused to form any snappy comeback. He wasted their extra moments, not able to think of any words at all, though Axel didn't seem to mind since he didn't try to supply any more conversation either. All Roxas's thinking power went to trying to figure out how to orchestrate a kiss goodnight when they got to Axel's door and if it would be too forward to do so.

He didn't get a chance to put his half formed plan (go on tiptoes and pull down Axel by the sides of that stupid jacket) into action though. 

What Roxas could only assume was the famous best friend, all hard lines and lean muscles, an inch taller than Axel, and a glimpse of pointed ears that Roxas would later think he only imagined seeing that were covered with a toss of long hair a moment after being exposed, met them on the street before they passed the Moon Crest Cafe. "There you are. We were worried. Bayla sent me to look for you. A Chocobo Knight came into the cafe tonight. Sin was spotted over the Thunder Plains."

Time seemed to freeze for a moment and then restart double time. Axel was gesturing and yelling and it was all too fast and too loud. Roxas couldn't coax a big reaction from himself. It couldn't be true. It hadn't even been two years. It had been a hundred years of sorrow since the last Calm before Lord Braska. For Braska's Calm to only last less than two years was beyond cruelty. 

"Yevon save us." The words slipped from Roxas's lips part prayer and part curse.

"Yevon won't." The outright blasphemy came from the redhead that admitted the temple didn't take. His friend glared at him but said nothing.

Roxas supported him with a nod as the words settled on him like a mantle. "I need to tell my mother before she hears it from someone else. I'll see you tomorrow. "

The next day Roxas left the weapons shop with a sword Axel helped him select and went directly to the Crusaders office to enlist. He swung back by Axel's later to see if he wanted to watch the sunset again and he refused. Every day for a week after, Roxas asked the same thing and got the same refusal. That's when he got the hint and just threw himself into training. Time passed. A town off the Moonflow was leveled. Ships were lost at sea during calm weather and with no fiend spottings reported. Life in Luca stayed pretty much stable. A few summoners passed through but more travelers came in for blitzball when the season came around. Roxas bought two tickets for every game, thinking he'd give the extras to Xion, but the day of the first match of the season Axel showed up at his door. His only explanation was that he never forgot a promise.

**Author's Note:**

> Next time we see if I can cram eight years into one chapter, Roxas tells Isa how he supports the rights of the sub-races like the Guado and it goes as well as you would expect, and we have young Wakka, Lulu, and Chappu. Please leave me a review if you liked it. Then go to shaky-mayhemm on tumblr and tell her you love her illustrations.


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